Recently, intranets were developed to handle internal communications and computing needs in a corporate or an institutional environment. An intranet is realized based upon open network technologies developed for the Internet. For example, like the Internet, an intranet employs the same transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) to transport information through the network.
A prior art intranet includes different servers and allows users to request services from the servers to realize internal communications, real-time applications, collaborations, etc. Mirroring the service provision approach of the Internet, the intranet provides the requested services on a first-come first-served basis, regardless of the workload attendant thereto. However, the resources in the intranet, e.g., memory storage space, server CPU times, transmission bandwidth, etc. are limited. As a result, the intranet, when congested, oftentimes meets a new service request with an unacceptable quality of service (QOS), and may even deny the request regardless of its importance to the user. Consequently, the use of such an intranet proves to be counter-productive, often causing frustration to the users.
Accordingly, there exists a need for efficient management of intranet resources to balance the network load and thereby reduce the congestion, to provide the users with an acceptable QOS, and to allow access to the network resources on a priority basis. The same need also applies to the Internet.